


Just grab my hand and pull me in

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression, Summer of mutual pining, also a bit fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 14:09:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Yuuri learns a few things about his idol-turned-coach-turned-almost?-friend that were never published in magazines, while Victor helps Yuuri face a few fears of his own - all over love (or perceived lack thereof) from fans and hitherto unknown acts of vandalism against personal property.  No big deal.  Right?





	Just grab my hand and pull me in

**Author's Note:**

> Set during that long, sweet summer where these two were just dancing around each other. Enjoy!

 

“Yuuri?” 

The sudden voice from the doorway of his room startled him only a little, and Yuuri looked up from his computer screen.  Victor was standing there, mostly in the hallway still and backlit by light spilling from the stairwell, watching him with a mildly concerned expression on his fair features.  Yuuri was sitting on his bed with his back to the wall, laptop open on his knees as he browsed mindlessly through forums he should have no business looking through this early in the season, reading all of the nasty things people were saying about the competitors for the year.  Mostly - mostly about him. He had meant to turn the computer off an hour ago, long before those words online turned into a burning ball of self-hatred and loathing in his stomach.

“Is something wrong?” Victor asked, and Yuuri had no idea how this enigma of a man already knew him so well, could read his face better in a month than Phichit could in a year.  Victor couldn’t see the screen he was reading, only Yuuri’s brightly lit torso in the darkness of the room, and he _still_ somehow knew.

Victor had one of those soft fabric bands in his hair, holding his bangs back, like the ones Mari wore all the time.  He only wore them when he was washing his face, getting ready for bed, and Victor’s last stop every night was here, right here in this doorway, to say goodnight to Yuuri.  It was something Yuuri himself was getting used to, having Victor here to say goodnight to at all. 

And yet, Yuuri just said softly, “I’m fine.  Goodnight, Victor.”

Victor frowned at him and leaned against the doorframe.  “I do not think your ‘fine’ is the same definition as mine, Y _uu_ ri,” he replied, voice gentle and wheedling as he dragged out the vowels of Yuuri’s name.  He smiled, then, a small, comforting smile that broke across his face and made little lines around the very corners of his eyes that Yuuri had never seen before, not until Victor had come here.  “You don’t have to tell me, Yuuri, but you can. If you want to.”

He paused, waiting patiently for Yuuri to decide what he wanted to do, and Yuuri watched him, his eyes flicking back down to the laptop where some person he didn’t know was talking about how he, Yuuri, should just stay retired because what was the point?  He was taking a chance from a younger skater. And it was true, wasn’t it, what this person was saying - him trying to compete again after his failure of the last season was a waste, and he should let the younger competitors have their chance. Right? His stomach began to hurt.

“Yuuri?”

Victor was no more insistent than he had been, but Yuuri looked up at him again, his lips pressed together tightly as his thoughts cycled quickly.

“People love you so much, don’t they?” he asked before he could stop the words from tumbling out.  Victor’s eyebrows wrinkled in confusion and Yuuri continued, trying to specify when he wasn’t even sure himself what he was trying to say.  “The skating community, I mean. Just...everyone. No one - no one hates you, or writes mean things about you online. The world loves you.”

The confusion vanished from Victor’s face, replaced by a fierce kind of resolution Yuuri had come to recognize at least in passing, though he wasn’t sure what was going through Victor’s mind just then.  He pulled the black band out of his hair and let his bangs fall into his eyes. “May I come in?” 

When Yuuri nodded, Victor stepped into the room and sat at the desk, turning the chair so he and Yuuri were facing each other.  With patient hands, he took the laptop from atop Yuuri’s legs and closed it without looking at the screen, then set it on the desk beside him.  All that was left to brighten the room then was the dim lamp on the bedside table, and shadows fell swiftly across Victor’s face like a veil being pulled back as he moved around to see Yuuri again.  

“I am quite sure people do say mean things about me online,” Victor finally told him with another little grin, though this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes.  “I’ve had to force myself to limit my social media exposure in the past to make sure I don’t find these things, else I am sure it would distress me just as much as it does you.  People know what to say to make it hurt. Is that...is that what is bothering you?” he asked, suddenly unsure. “Has someone said something rude about you?”

It all seemed so silly, then, so stupid to get caught up in some stranger’s spite, and Yuuri just swallowed and stared down and the blanket under his knees.  “I guess,” he mumbled, ashamed of how upset he was. “I mean, it’s not a big deal? Not really,” he tried to divert, wanting, quite abruptly, to not let Victor really see how badly these things hurt him.  Victor already understood too much of him, and it was - it was scary. “It’s just - no, it’s nothing.”

Yuuri squirmed a little as Victor studied him in the dimness of the room, his eyes sharp and shining and blue.  

“I purchased my first car when I was eighteen,” Victor said into the silence.  That brought Yuuri’s gaze up again, the segue out of place and surprising. “It was not a fancy car, not like the two I have now back in Russia.  A tiny sedan, older than I was. It had no air conditioning, and the windows, how do you say - ” He broke off and mimed a crank window. “A good car, reliable.  I liked it, and it gave me freedom I had never had before. One night...I was staying late at the rink with Georgi and Maria - Maria does not skate with us anymore, she is retired now.  But Zhora was upset about something, and so Masha and I were trying to help him feel better.  I was going to give them both a ride home. It was almost midnight when we left.” 

He paused, and Yuuri watched the hesitant way he tugged his lip with his front teeth for just a second before he took a huffing breath and stood from the chair.  He came instead to sit beside Yuuri on the bed, leaning back against the wall too, close enough that Yuuri could smell the moisturizer he put on his face less than fifteen minutes ago.  Victor wiggled a bit, getting comfortable, and gave Yuuri a bright lopsided smile, completely ignoring the blush Yuuri knew was coloring his cheeks a vibrant scarlet.

“Your bed is so small, Yuuri!” he said without any kind of care for how it sounded.  “It’s so nice, though, very soft and warm.”

“What, um, what were you saying?  About Georgi and the rink?”

“Oh, well.”  The smile faltered off Victor’s face in a very un-Victor-like fashion and Yuuri suddenly had no earthly idea where this story was going.  “When we left, my car was the only one left in the lot, everyone else was gone. Someone had - oh, what is this word? My English vocabulary is failing me, Yuuri.”  Victor’s head dropped dramatically to Yuuri’s shoulder with his exclamation, just long enough for Yuuri’s heart to stutter in his chest, but then Victor straightened and sighed wearily.  “Covered it in paint? Left mean things written on the sides and scratched it all over." 

“Oh my god, they vandalized your car?”

“‘Vandalize’, that is the word, yes.”  Victor nodded, his eyes far away with memories as he kept talking.  “Zhora and Masha helped me clean the paint off with some cleaners we found in the rink - maybe not the best idea in hindsight, but it worked.  They stayed with me for hours, it was very kind of them.”

He was silent again, his story tapering off, and Yuuri let it soak in, horrified and angry.  He hadn’t known anything about this from articles or interviews, not about the car itself or the vandalizm or any of it, and he felt something in his chest clench and pull tight.  Something like anger, or indignation, even an intense sense of protectiveness over Victor that had been coming in stronger and stronger waves over the last week or four as Yuuri learned more about him.  

“That’s such a terrible story.”

“Yuuri!” Victor gasped, throwing a dramatic hand to his chest, his eyes sparkling.  “I have never told anyone else that account before in my _life_ , and you are saying it is _bad_?  Do I need to tell you something else, something better?  Or is my entire life existing only for you to say ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when I tell you of my tragic past outside of the media limelight?” 

Some part of Yuuri knew Victor was joking, but the irrational part he could not control flailed with panic and he reached out to grab Victor’s arm with both hands.  “That’s not what I meant, Victor, I swear. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - ”

“It’s okay, Yuuri!  I know.” Victor plucked Yuuri’s hands from his arm and held them in his own, his fingers and palms warm, comforting.  He held the tangled bunch of their hands together in his lap for a moment, staring down at them, and Yuuri did not pull away even when he felt like he was on fire with the contact.  “I really did not tell anyone else at the time. Not even Yakov. Zhora, Masha, and I - we got the paint off, but the scratches were still there and I could not at the time afford to get them fixed without sacrificing other things.  So I showed up the next day with my car...well, the way it was. When Yakov asked, I told him I ran through some bushes and he believed me.”

Yuuri stared at him, startled and a little more than merely unhappy or angry now, though that roaring need to protect Victor from the unknown continued to beat in his chest.  Something about this was obviously deeper than just a sad story about a car, even if he didn’t have the nerve to say so. Instead he let Victor continue to grasp his hands without trying to tug them away.   

“To this day,” Victor said with a wistful little smile, “Yakov thinks I am a terrible driver with that lie.  But I am not, Yuuri, I am a wonderful driver. Very safe. I will show you one day. Yakov though, Yakov said to me, he said - ‘Vitya, you are a disgrace to Russia if you treat your beloved and hard-earned possessions this way, you should be ashamed’.  I could not tell him the truth then, Yuuri, you see; he would not believe me.” 

There was a melancholy to his tone at that point that hadn’t been there before, but Victor didn’t elaborate any more.  He let go of Yuuri’s hands with a murmured ‘sorry’ as though he just realized he was still holding on to them.

“I suppose my point with all of this,” he continued after a few seconds, “was that someone knew it was my car, and whoever did it was likely a competitor at the same rink who did not like me at all.  I already tried to let hurtful comments bounce off, but this forced me to grow my skin very thick. Now,” he said, turning his head to look directly at Yuuri, who noticed again how very close he was, “now I laugh off every mean thing people try to tell me, whether it is someone saying I am stupid or someone who thinks all I have to my name is a pretty face.  This is only from experience and necessity, that is all, because letting it in pains me too much.”

Victor laid his head on Yuuri’s shoulder and this time he kept it there, nestled in the crook of Yuuri’s neck.  “Do not say this is not a big deal, Yuuri, when you read these mean things. If they bother you and make you sad, it _is_ a big deal.  I’ll fight them for you,” he offered without prompting, and Yuuri knew somehow that he was serious.  “I can make an anonymous account and fight all of them.”

Phichit had offered to do that on numerous occasions, but for some reason, this, coming from Victor, felt different.  Phichit was always genuine in his righteous anger on Yuuri’s behalf, but it was like Victor was in Yuuri’s corner, wearing the same boxing gloves as Yuuri was.  Some of the guilt-ridden anxiety that had been whirring tightly in his brain all evening slowed, just a little, and let him breathe.

Yuuri tried to turn to see Victor’s eyes, but he was met with a facefull of silvery hair instead.  He was so _close_.   “You shouldn’t do that, but thank you.” 

Victor tilted his head up just a little and yes, they were very, _very_ close.  Yuuri felt the warm rush of Victor’s toothpaste-minty breath against his skin, the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked tiredly, and his lips, when Victor gave him a sweet, small grin in the dim lamplight - all Yuuri would have to do is move just the tiniest bit and he could kiss him, kiss that beautiful smile he had stared at for years but had never truly seen until weeks ago.  

Victor sighed again, the warm air brushing across Yuuri’s jaw and making the blush on his cheeks move all the way up to his hairline.  But Victor shifted again, his head turning away so he could more easily lean all of his weight against Yuuri’s side and hide his face in Yuuri’s neck.  “I’m tired, Yuuri,” he grumbled, “I need to sleep. How do you stay up so _late_ and still have energy all day?”   

“Oh, um.”  Yuuri chuckled out a nervous laugh, his body burning where it touched Victor’s - which was almost everywhere right then.  “I’m just used to it, I think.”

“Not fair.  It is far past my bedtime.”

The bed shifted when Victor began to disentangle himself in the effort to stand.  He got to his feet and padded over to the door, but then paused and turned back around to where Yuuri hadn’t moved at all.  “It is not an overreaction to get upset over these things, Yuuri, yeah? And you can tell me about them, if you want, even if you will not let me fight them for you.  I will still listen.”

Warmth flooded Yuuri’s chest, chasing away the last remnants of the unpleasant disappointment from earlier.  “Thank you, Victor.” 

“You are very welcome, Yuuri.”  He smiled again, bright and vibrant, before adding, “And remember that whatever these cruel people say is always, one hundred percent, wrong.  They do not know you, so what they say about you will always, _always_ be wrong.”

“I might need reminding of that,” Yuuri said before he could rethink the words, but Victor just nodded solemnly.

“Whenever you need to hear it, I promise.  Goodnight, Yuuri.”

“Victor - ”  He paused again and looked back expectantly, and Yuuri felt his cheeks explode with heat as he flushed.  But he pushed on regardless, unable to leave it alone. “I’m really sorry about your car. That was an awful thing for someone to do to you.”

Victor’s face softened into an expression Yuuri had only ever seen since he had been here, in Yuuri’s home - never, ever in photographs or magazines or posters.  Yuuri didn’t yet have a name for it, this expression, but it made him happy to see, and he hoped Victor was happy, too, when he looked like that. Victor didn’t say anything in response, just nodded his appreciation for Yuuri’s acknowledgement with the barest flutter of a grin and backed out of the room.  He slid the door closed behind him, remembering that was what Yuuri preferred.

Yuuri flopped over onto his side and hugged his pillow to his chest.  His stomach still felt tight but not queasy like before, not sick and anxious and overwhelmed with that sticky, sinking doubt that snuck into every fiber.

Knowing Victor was just down the hall - it didn’t fix everything, it didn’t take all of his anxiety away, but it made him feel a little better, and certainly much less alone.

 


End file.
